Canon overview

Willow is Buffy's best friend and a member of the so-called Scooby Gang for all seven seasons. She is a nerd and a computer geek, although later seasons de-emphasize her academic and technical interests in favor of focusing on her increasing knowledge of witchcraft; she starts practising magic in season 3 and is considered a very powerful witch by the end of the show.

Willow's "good girl" image in the early seasons was gleefully contrasted in two episodes featuring a Mirror Universe version of Willow as an evil, sexy vampire in leather pants, sometimes referred to by fans as Vamp!Willow or Evil!Willow. Evil!Willow is a more ambiguous designation; Willow became the Big Bad in season six to get revenge on the murder of Tara.

Sexuality

In the first three seasons, Willow is shown having crushes on boys exclusively. She first has a hopeless crush on her other best friend, Xander Harris, but then dates Oz (who turns out to be a werewolf). Oz is quite smitten with Willow, and Willow gains confidence in the relationship. In the fourth season, however, Oz leaves the show, and Willow starts dating Tara Maclay. In this relationship, Tara was the shy, cautious one, while Willow was the one with confidence. Tara is also a witch, and the show uses their magic as a metaphor for the blossoming relationship.

The show's coy use of metaphor in place of definitive statements contributed to early fan arguments over whether or not Tara and Willow were actually dating. However, relationship denials continued after "New Moon Rising", the episode intended as Willow's coming out moment. In fact, there was at least one usenet discussion debating "Tara's lesbian spell on Willow."[1]

From season four onward, Willow canonically identifies as a lesbian.[2] Some fans felt that Willow's gay identity devalued her relationship with Oz and that she was actually bisexual.

Many fans were upset by how the murder of Tara, written to trigger Willow's transformation into Evil Willow, evoked the homophobic dead/evil lesbian trope of Hollywood films. See Fan reaction to Tara's death for more.

When the series ended, Willow was in a relationship with Kennedy, a slayer in training activated in the final battle, whose reception with fans was mixed. To some fans, Kennedy seemed to have only a sexuality in common with Willow. The relationship continued in the S8 comics.

Witchcraft

Jewishness

Willow is identified as Jewish in several lines of dialogue, but some Jewish fans and others were frustrated that this aspect of her character was not developed more, especially since confirmed Jewish characters are rare in most fannish sources. Some fans have also observed that Willow's Jewishness was more prominent in earlier seasons, but that as she became a practicing witch and as she embraced the identity 'lesbian', she left her Jewish identity behind. (See also the page on Judaism and Fandom.)